The ISO 9001 is a set of international standards for quality management systems. It was developed in March 1987 by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). The goal of these standards is to help organizations ensure that they meet customer and other stakeholder needs within the statutory and regulatory requirements related to a product or service. The standards were designed to fit into an integrated management system.
In March 1979, BSI published the world's first quality management systems standard, BS 5750, as part of a response to growing concerns about the quality. BS 5750 supplied the template for the development of the ISO 9000 series in March 1987, by ISO. However, its history can be traced back some twenty years before that, to the publication of government procurement standards, such as the United States Department of Defense MIL-Q-9858 standard in 1959, and the United Kingdom's Def Stan 05–21 and 05–24. Large organizations that supplied government procurement agencies often had to comply with a variety of quality assurance requirements for each contract awarded, which led the defense industry to adopt mutual recognition of NATO AQAP, MIL-Q, and Def Stan standards. Eventually, industries adopted ISO 9000 instead of forcing contractors to adopt multiple—and often similar—requirements.